W is for Wretched
by Zubeneschamali
Summary: Missing scene towards the end of The Janus List from Don's POV.  A companion piece to A is for Agony, although it's not necessary to have read that one first.


Title: W is for Wretched  
Author: Zubeneschamali  
Rating: PG  
Summary: A companion piece to "A is for Agony," although it's not necessary to have read that one first. Missing scene towards the end of "The Janus List" from Don's POV.

Author's note: Thanks to ritt for the beta stamp of approval. This story was written for the 2007 alphabet challenge.

Disclaimer: I always forget to mention this, but they're not mine. Any of them. Do you think I'm in denial?

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Suburban sped along the darkened city streets, siren wailing and lights pulsing. Don kept pressing the redial button on his cell, hoping each time that something would change, that this time Megan or Colby would pick up the phone at the safe house and reassure him that everything was fine, that it was a false alarm and that the land lines and cell lines had all gone down at once for a perfectly innocuous reason.

But the phone kept ringing.

The call from David that had sparked this little trip kept playing through his head. He'd heard the worry in David's tight tone of voice, and he'd tried to keep various scenarios from running through his head as he sped down to the beach house where Colby and Megan were ensconced with the witness. At least, he hoped they still were. If this list of traitors and double agents was really as wide-ranging as Taylor Ashby had hinted, someone's reach could be long enough to infiltrate what he thought was a secure operation.

He flipped his phone shut in frustration, and almost instantly it began to ring. He glanced at the caller ID, grimacing when he realized it wasn't one of his out-of-touch agents. On the other hand, given where he had left Charlie and Amita, this could be even more important. He flipped the phone open again. "Charlie? Charlie, is that you?"

"Don, we, um…" There was a pause as his brother cleared his throat and then started again. "Where are you?"

Don's eyes flickered to the street signs as he whizzed through another intersection, siren warning the cross traffic to get the hell out of the way. "I'm about a mile away from their location, so whatever it is you have to say, you'd better hurry it up." He was already running through his mental checklist of the weapons he had on him and the procedures to take when he would be pulling up a block away from the safehouse. First on the list was to call David and get their joint approaches precisely timed. No, first on the list was to try the safehouse one more time, just in case.

He realized he wasn't hearing anything from the phone at his ear, and he barked, "Charlie, are you there?"

He heard a deep breath, and then came a torrent of words describing how his brother and Amita had found the elusive Janus List, how extensive it was, and that, unsurprisingly enough, Colby's old Army buddy was on it. Then there was another pause, this one somehow more ominous.

And the realization struck him like a blow to his solar plexus. Charlie knew where he was going, knew how urgent it was that his phone line be kept open. He wouldn't be dragging this out unless there was something he didn't want to say. Something that Don probably didn't want to know. But given the name he had just heard, there was little doubt about what that something could be.

"And?" He kept his tone of voice level, but he felt like he was at the top of a cliff, watching the ground start to crumble beneath his feet with nothing but a long plunge to the rocks below.

He held his breath until the answer came: his agent's name spoken out loud, sealing the deal and tearing away the ground underneath him like a tidal wave destroying the shore. He let the feeling wash over him for a second, the enormity of the words Charlie had spoken buffeting him around and disorienting him like nothing he had ever encountered before. Your team members might let you down from time to time, might make errors of judgment or have lapses of skill that led to a suspect getting away or a bullet going somewhere it shouldn't. Your team members didn't sell out your country and then abuse your agency and your trust to get away with it.

Don's jaw was clenched so tight that it was starting to hurt. So he took a deep breath, started to lock away the grief and anguish somewhere in a back corner of his mind to be dealt with at some later, unspecified date, and hit the accelerator harder. "You're sure?" he asked, knowing that Charlie wouldn't make such an accusation without rock-solid proof.

For answer, he heard a series of beeps, and then Ashby's voice reciting a list of names that would cause scores of men and women around the globe to have the same experience that he just did, of the certainty of knowing and trusting someone being yanked out from underneath them with a harshness that could not be reduced no matter how gently the news was delivered. He braced himself for hearing Colby's name, but he still flinched when the damning words came over the line. They were followed instantly by Charlie's shaky voice. "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah, I damn well heard that," he growled, hearing the same grief in Charlie's voice that he had been feeling a moment ago, and ruthlessly pushing it aside so he could deal with the task at hand. He needed to get a hold of David, now, and the safehouse was only seconds away. "I gotta go, Charlie. Take down the other names and hold on to them till I get back, okay?"

It occurred to him as he hung up that Charlie was now the possessor of information that people would gladly kill for. No, that people had already killed for, if slowly enough that his team was able to puzzle out the master spy's meaning before he became unable to communicate to anyone but a stubborn genius. His finger hovered over the phone's keypad to call the director's office and demand protection for two of the FBI's best consultants, but then he froze. He hadn't heard the entire Janus List, and he didn't know if Charlie had, either. Colby's name might not be the only one on the Bureau's payroll, which meant Charlie was better off where he was, talking to no one but Amita. At least for now. But as soon as the safehouse was secure, he would be racing back to the office to make sure that the list and the people who had heard it were safe and sound.

In the meantime, he thought grimly as he punched in David's number, he had a call to make. And a partnership—and friendship—to shatter.


End file.
